dollhouse world
by Just the Wind
Summary: But then he came along and his hair was like mahogany and his smile was a little broken and he gave her the feeling of being on a rollercoaster seconds before it plummeted, but knowing it'd swoop right back up and then just fall once more. His eyes were captivating. Oneshot.


**I'm on vacation but wanted to write something disjointed. Call me crazy, but non-linear timelines are, I think, the best things ever. Hopefully this doesn't confuse you, I tried to make it clear enough.**

**Word count: 1186**

**I'm listening to: a lecture on democracy (not even kidding).**

**o.o.O.o.o**

He is standing in front of her, smiling with a hand outreached and she feels like she can't breathe.

**o.o.O.o.o**

She'd always been a princess, royalty at school and daddy's little girl at home and a media darling for the world. Her skin was pure perfection and her eyes shone like unicorn blood and her lips were like silk against his.

She longed for a blond man with a generic smile to sweep her off his feet and blandly fly along, never setting her down but never soaring any higher, either. She longed for a white wedding and children born a year later, all with pretty smiles and curly hair.

**o.o.O.o.o**

"So what'd you say?"

Her breath chokes in her throat and she can't exhale. The world is waving around her, undulating in and out and pushing so hard on her shoulders she thinks she might be ground into dust. His words hang in the air and she thinks that he's shimmered them into existence where they will haunt her forever more.

"What'd you say?"

**o.o.O.o.o**

She was a master of pretty, plastic laughs and twirling a blonde strand of highlighted hair around a pretty finger and batting a naturally jet black pretty eyelash and getting just what she wanted.

The world was plastic, pretty and yielding in her pretty palm.

**o.o.O.o.o**

But then he came along and his hair was like mahogany and his smile was a little broken and he gave her the feeling of being on a rollercoaster seconds before it plummeted, but knowing it'd swoop right back up and then just fall once more.

His eyes were captivating.

**o.o.O.o.o**

They'd sit under a weeping willow and she'd feel herself glowing and him not melting and would wonder briefly what was wrong. He'd put his hand on the ground, just a little closer to her upturned palm than a causal friend. She'd feel a pull, like a magnet, but she'd resist because he was too much. Too much for her and her dainty little hands because they couldn't hold the burden of herself that he put on her.

He'd force her to say what was on her mind and then she'd have to think about what she could think about and the answers didn't always please her. Opaque plastic becoming translucent glass and suddenly everything made sense in a way that made her eyes prickle with tears and she was met with a ledge that didn't have a soft landing. Nothing to hold her back and nothing to stop her fall and just him chanting "jump, jump, jump".

Besides, his touch wasn't gentle and it sent shivers up her spine. Scary shivers, late at night thinking of his smile and his hands and the way he could make her feel out of control.

**o.o.O.o.o**

"Vic, you gotta say something."

"No,"

His smile looks a little heartbroken, but only if she looks closely. She turns away, avoiding his eye. "No you won't or no you don't have to say anything. Because if the second thing, you've already said something so you might as well answer me." He lets out a strangled laugh and her entire being plummets into the pit of her stomach.

"I can't marry you,"

The wind hits her like a slap in the face as she runs, tears freezing in their tracks with the cold.

"Vic!" she hears in the distance but she is going, going, gone.

**o.o.O.o.o**

He played guitar outside her window for three weeks in a row as the short summer nights transitioned into chilly fall evenings, at which point he retreated into the cold.

He'd write her songs and ask her questions with a look in his eye that said something like that he cared what she'd answer.

**o.o.O.o.o**

"What are you thinking?" He asked and she looked at him with a galaxy of ideas mixing in her head until the stars became cotton and she was suffocating from the inside out.

She opened her mouth and no words came out.

He told her it was okay and gave her a piece of chocolate and when their fingers brushed, sparks warmed her cheeks and she had to pinch her arm to remind herself about everything she had always wanted- the bland, blonde boy and their pretty children and nothing like sparks, nothing that could burn.

**o.o.O.o.o**

She thinks that every atom in her body is screaming and she thinks she might be too. She's not sure what she's thinking right now.

"Vic!"

It echoes one thousand times in her head and her skull feels like it's breaking into pieces, but that could just be her heart.

**o.o.O.o.o**

"What's wrong?" He'd asked her wide, frightened eyes, tucking a blonde lock of hair behind her ears.

"I don't know anymore."

She did know, it felt like her body was buzzing with electric and the only way to get relief would be to press her lips to his but she didn't because he wasn't blonde and generic and bland and whatever else it had been that she had wanted. But every part of her wanted to give him an answer in the form of a kiss.

**o.o.O.o.o**

It's been a year since she ran away. One full year since she told him she wouldn't, couldn't, marry him.

It's been one year and she has a child. A pretty little girl with a smile like sunshine and a father nothing like the moon, named Stella for the stars that she would always be reaching for.

He's not boring, not predictable, not bland and generic and not anything that she had wanted from the time that she was daddy's little girl until the time that daddy took her arm and walked her down the aisle.

**o.o.O.o.o**

He had caught up and asked her again, "Vic, what'd you think about marrying me?" because he knew that she didn't always mean what she said and she wasn't very good at trusting that he'd catch her if she jumped off of some figurative ledge and he knew that he wasn't what she had waned but he mostly knew that he was what she needed, anyway. She had cried a little and he had asked her what she was thinking and she had failed to hold back a "yes" that jumped to her lips and succeeded in biting back the "no" that tried to escape yet again.

"I love you," he had told her, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

"I'm scared," she exhaled, and saying out loud felt like acknowledging what she was thinking and he looked so happy that she had done that.

Their lips crashed together and she wondered if she'd ever get used to feeling like a rollercoaster that was climbing, climbing up.

And, of course, they lived happily ever after.


End file.
